


Businessmen have silver tongues and sharp teeth

by aimlessvoid



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alexis | Quackity Being a Jerk, Alexis | Quackity shouldn't have gambled with his abuser, Angst, Bad Decisions, Canonical Character Death, Canonical Child Abuse, Emotional Manipulation, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mentioned TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Not Beta Read, Pandora's Vault Prison, Sam | Awesamdude needs a break, Sam | Awesamdude-Centric, Warden Sam | Awesamdude, Why can't we have nice things?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-25 23:42:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30096960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aimlessvoid/pseuds/aimlessvoid
Summary: Whipping around, Quackity repeated “I want to make my visit, Sam,” more evenly this time. His eyes shone with a palpable enthusiasm that was more than enough to make Sam pause in a normal situation. This wasn’t normal.“To the prison?” Sam asked, voice shaking, knowing the answer. Flashes of Tommy’s frantic pleading raced through his head. Don’t let anyone in. He has the book. He’ll kill them. He’ll revive Wilbur.Quackity nodded. The movement was slow, calculated. “Yeah. You think you can help me out with that?” He was a businessman, even when asking. His presence left no room for protest and the question disallowed unfavorable answers. Sam could’ve sworn he saw something dark behind him, but there was nothing there.---Quackity asks Sam to visit Dream. There's nothing influencing that development.
Kudos: 16





	Businessmen have silver tongues and sharp teeth

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE READ!!!  
> Warnings for: implied torture, mentioned abuse, manipulation, mentioned character death, hallucinations, referenced trauma nightmares, implied PTSD, blood

It was raining when Quackity contacted him. A simple message: meet me by the hotel, I have something important to ask. This wasn’t entirely out of the ordinary, Quackity generally preferred to speak face to face, which meant a lot of messages for meetings about building Las Nevadas.

Sam had thought it would be quick. A request for something about a build to be changed that he could do later, and then he would be able to go home and finally get some sleep. Or, what passed for sleep. Ever since Tommy, Sam couldn’t sleep for more than a few hours without nightmares. Dream’s laugh, Tommy’s screams, Dream taunting him after the revival, Tommy blaming him for his death.

Between the lack of sleep, watching over the prison, and the egg’s recent power grab at Hannah, Sam was beyond exhausted. He hadn’t showered in days. His hair was matted and stuck up at odd angles. The dark circles under his eyes looked closer to smudged eyeliner than skin.

But duty was duty and Sam felt a responsibility as Quackity’s business partner to meet him when asked. For a short meeting. Of course, it didn’t end up like that.

Quackity was waiting when he got there. Drenched, of course, but put together. He was less than forthcoming about the reason he’d asked Sam to meet him, dodging initial questions and suggesting they go inside the hotel to talk, on account of the rain. Not because it was harder to walk away inside a building.

The dim lobby lighting and the constant sound of water droplets hitting the ground outside only stretched the silence once they were inside. Quackity stared at Sam the way a con man sizes up his next target, cold, analytical, conniving. He seemed to make a decision, nodding to himself and tilting his head towards the still open doors of the hotel.

“It’s time,” he said with a quiet certainty. He hadn’t mentioned anything previously that he’d been on the fence about building and Sam was sure he would remember Quackity being unsure of a project. Evidently, the confusion wasn’t plain enough on Sam’s face for Quackity to clarify in any meaningful way. “I think it’s time for me to finally do it.”

Sam furrowed his brow. Quackity wasn’t one to be cryptic, especially when it came to business. No, his vagueness was limited to threats against people he didn’t think favorably of.

“To do what? What are you talking about?” Sam faltered over the words, apprehension weighing heavy in his tone. Quackity clenched his jaw. Sam was filled with an overwhelming sense that this was not about business at all. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Quackity’s face lit up like Sam had said exactly what he wanted him to say. At once, the dark aura in the room let up, the dim lights felt less foreboding and oppressive. “I want to make my visit, Sam,” Quackity said with the same eager and euphemistic tone a child would use to ask for just one quarter for a candy bar. He turned to the window on the back wall of the lobby, gazing out at the prison. The rain pattered against the glass. Sam swallowed.

Whipping around, Quackity repeated “I want to make my visit, Sam,” more evenly this time. His eyes shone with a palpable enthusiasm that was more than enough to make Sam pause in a normal situation. This wasn’t normal.

“To the prison?” Sam asked, voice shaking, knowing the answer. Flashes of Tommy’s frantic pleading raced through his head. Don’t let anyone in. He has the book. He’ll kill them. He’ll revive Wilbur.

Quackity nodded. The movement was slow, calculated. “Yeah. You think you can help me out with that?” He was a businessman, even when asking. His presence left no room for protest and the question disallowed unfavorable answers. Sam could’ve sworn he saw something dark behind him, but there was nothing there.

Sam couldn’t stop thinking of Tommy. Every thought of the prison was tied to Tommy, to Dream, to what Dream did to Tommy, to Tommy’s revival. He’d begged Sam not to let anyone visit, for fear that Dream would kill them. For fear that they would go through exactly what Tommy did. “I guess, maybe, I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Quackity clicked his tongue impatiently, cutting Sam’s repeated stuttering off. “Well, he’s in there, right?”

“Of course, he’s in there, where else would he be?” A spark of defensiveness weaved its way into Sam’s tone, hot and righteous and ready to rebuke the implication that Sam didn’t do his job. Then the spark died. Sam hesitated, doubt creeping up his throat and into his mouth. “But last time someone visited, it didn’t go very well.”

A predatory smile appeared on Quackity’s face. “I know what happened,” of course, he did. Everyone knew that Sam let Tommy die. Silence returned. The rain had long since stopped filling the expectant pauses Quackity weaved into his speech. He clicked his tongue again and turned to walk out the open doors of the hotel. Sam drug his feet along in his wake, compelled to follow.

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I shouldn’t go. But, Sam, there’s a large issue with that prison,” he said, gesturing grandly at the starry sky above. He spun around, again something behind him and slightly above, like it was floating. Sam blinked and it was gone. He was more tired than he thought, it seemed, if he was hallucinating.

“You brought Tommy in there, Tommy died,” he continued, tone casually accusatory, poking around at Sam’s guilt to try and get him to yield. It’s what any shrewd businessman would do to secure a deal. “Sounds kind of unsafe in there.”

“Well, it’s-“

He cut Sam off again, determined to dominate the flow of the conversation, “My issue is simple: even though you have him locked up, nothing stopped him from killing Tommy. He has _power_ , Sam. Even in the prison he has power.” He paused, glaring off into the distance with a small scowl.

Contrary to whatever ulterior motive drove Quackity to suddenly want to visit (and there was an ulterior motive, Sam wasn’t stupid), he genuinely despised Dream. Whatever his goal was with the revive book must’ve been more important than his feelings. “Why haven’t we killed him?”

Sam sighed, exhausted from going over that very question with himself over and over since Tommy’s death. “We can’t kill him, Quackity. He’s the only person who can bring people back to life.” He knew it. Quackity knew it. Everyone knew it, including Dream. The only reason he was in the prison was because he sprung the revive book as a method to save his own skin. If it wasn’t for that, well, there’s a long line of people that would gladly remove his burdensome presence from the shoulders of the server for good. Instead, that weight was placed solely on Sam.

Quackity nodded, ignoring the somber, tired inflection in Sam’s voice and pressing on. “There you go. He’s the only one that can bring people back. So why don’t you just go in, take the book, and kill him?”

The naivety of that plan was enough for Sam to roll his eyes. Quackity couldn’t honestly believe that Dream would give up his one ticket to life under any circumstances, if that was a possibility, Dream never would have been imprisoned in the first place. “He won’t give anyone the book. He knows that we won’t need him alive. He won’t give anyone the book.”

“What if you let me talk to him?” Quackity asked with all the hubris needed to entertain that thought at all.

Sam had already worn out that sort of thinking. Thinking anyone could truly win against Dream in this manufactured stalemate was a fool’s fantasy. If he had more energy, more will, he would’ve scoffed. “Trust me, there’s no way you can get the book from him,” he insisted, hoping to cut this line of thinking off and go back home.

“I want to try. Can you let me try, at least?” he almost sounded like he was pleading. Not in the frantic way that Tommy did, no, even his begging was controlled, only meant to serve the purpose of getting Sam to cave.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

Quackity sighs, raising Sam’s hopes that he’ll just give up. No such luck. “You know what? I get that you’re unsure about me going to see him,” he began placatingly, obviously leading the conversation into yet another direction that he thought would be convincing. “My safety is a concern, so, let me bring these in.” He pulled out a diamond axe and a diamond sword.

Sam froze. It wasn’t only a blatant shirking of the rules of the prison, which Quackity had to be aware of to suggest it, but it was also a threat. Not to Sam, but to Dream. No one takes weapons anywhere they don’t plan on using them.

Sam quickly shook his head. He wanted to detail exactly what was wrong with Quackity’s suggestion, morally and legally, but all he could muster was a weak, “That’s not a good idea.”

This pushed Quackity over whatever edge he had been teetering on, trying to remain civil and only subtly manipulative. “He killed Tommy! And you’re just gonna let him get away with it? You’re gonna let him get away with it,” he accused, half screaming at Sam as if his rage was actually about Tommy and not about whatever he hoped to get out of his visit to Dream. The dark thing was behind him again, floating there. Sam tried to get his eyes to focus on it. It almost looked like a man with horns curling forward around his face. This time, the apparition lingered.

Sam was too tired to react. Even if he didn’t have the gas mask on, his face would’ve been blank. It wasn’t like he hadn’t said similar things to himself. None of this was new, all of it was pointless.

Taking a second to cool down after seeing that his blow up didn’t work, Quackity ran a hand through his hair and steadied his breathing. He carefully coaxed his voice back under its previous saccharine veil. “Come on, Sam, all I need is a few minutes and these two things. Remember what he did to Tommy.”

Sam briefly made the connection to the way that Dream liked to monologue, deliberately trying to prey on the listeners emotions. Quackity was trying to use Tommy as a weapon. All anyone ever did was use him, as a hero, as an example, as a twisted science experiment. Sam clenched his fists.

“ _Don’t_ tell me what he did to Tommy, I know what he did,” Sam warned, volume rising, fueled by the anger at Tommy’s murder that Quackity had haphazardly been excavating throughout their conversation. “You weren’t there. You didn’t run over after it happened and-” he cut himself off. He remembered the lava lowering. Tommy’s body lying in the pool of water at the back of the cell. Dream’s unhinged laughter. The feeling of claustrophobia, the shortness of breath, ripping off the gas mask and tasting the salty tears that slid from his cheeks to his lips.

Quackity didn’t know when to stop. “You have no control over him. I can fix that. All you gotta do is let me in with these two things,” he promised. It was so easy to believe him, to imagine a world where Dream was gone, where the prison was empty. Where he couldn’t hurt anyone anymore. “If you strip away the little bit of power he has left, then that’s it.”

Sam – head pounding, exhausted, desperate – gave in. It was easy. “You’re sure that you can make him give you the book?”

Quackity grinned, looking closer to an animal bearing its teeth than a human expressing happiness. “I’ll try for as long as it takes. I don’t care what I have to do, I’ll get that book. I’ll make sure he never does what he did to Tommy ever again.”

It was easy to go through the motions of being the warden. To lead Quackity through the various rooms, have him sign the waivers, and even to give him the tools (shears and the warden’s axe and sword). If anyone asked later he wouldn’t have been able to describe the trip to the main cell in much detail. He remembers, vaguely, that Quackity seemed smug. But that wasn’t out of the ordinary.

He remembers the shadowy form appearing and disappearing behind Quackity. There were whispers in his ears, more hallucinations. Something about a deal. It wasn’t important.

Quackity went across and into the cell and Sam knew what he was going to do, he knew that he’d condoned it. If you’d asked him, he would’ve said that he didn’t remember giving Quackity the warden’s tools, the shears. That would’ve been a lie. It felt _good_ knowing that Dream was going to hurt, enabling it after everything that monster put the server through. It felt _right_.

The lava fell and it was quiet. Whatever murmured conversation was happening within, the microphone inside didn’t pick it up. That was, until the screaming started. Sam jumped, turned the microphone off, and waited. He didn’t want to hear it.

Not too long after, Quackity messaged him, asking to leave. As the lava lowered, Sam could see Dream crumpled against the far wall of the cell. Quackity was covered in blood. There hadn’t been a death message.

Once Quackity was across he handed Sam the tools. The netherite was already cleaned in the lava. The shears still bore the sign of what they had been used for. “No dice today. I’ll be back tomorrow. He’ll give up the knowledge,” Quackity assured.

It had been over a week. Every day, Quackity would come back to the prison. Sam would give him the same tools and mute the microphone in the cell. Quackity would leave covered in blood, assuring Sam that next time he would get the information.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed, consider leaving a comment or kudos and following my twitter @aimlessvoid1 where I post my wacky theories and analysis of the SMP characters and ask for prompts occasionally.


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